TT001 – Text Table 001 – Qualitative Values

This series of text tables is used for assigning qualitative values to a set of categories. There are a few aspects of this layout that are useful and important:

Templates of these charts can be developed and distributed to a large group for completion. People don't have to know how to work with tables in order to rank the categories. They simply need to know how to apply color to the cells, which is a two-step process: highlight the cells in the table that they want to color and click on a color.

The templates are preformatted with really nice and "designy" effects. The lines between the rows have a color to separate the rankings, every other line has a slight shading so the eye can travel across the slide easily to the ranking, and the categories listed on the right-hand side of the slide have an arrow backing, which creates a nice suggestion of flow. These colors can be adjusted to reflect your template's color palette, which will make them sync with the rest of the presentation. If you prefer to eliminate this formatting, just select the whole table and click on no fill and no lines. You may want to keep the lines, however, as they do create a break between the rankings.

After the template is final with all of the categories filled in, the backing arrow can be adjusted easily before the template is distributed. There should be no further need for adjustments, since the only additions to the table will be the color in the ranking cells.

This is a tried-and-true method of gathering data from large groups of people in a visually pleasing way. Be sure to review the tutorial for formatting and usage tips. The formatting is a little advanced, but easy to understand and work with if you spend a few minutes with the tutorial.

Important: if your PowerPoint template is set up so that the first level of text comes in with a bullet point, the text in these charts will come in with bullet points. You don't want this. You'll have to reformat the text and indents within the imported text chart template. Alternatively, please review the best practice entitled, "Establishing the Text Hierarchy in Your PowerPoint Slide Master." A properly set up template will save a lot of formatting and reformatting when using PowerFrameworks text tables and data-driven chart templates. You have probably already had experience with this happening with other, non-PowerFrameworks material inserted into your presentations. You can eliminate this problem quickly and easily by reformatting your template's text hierarchy.